Fat chance

Did you see him on the news?

14 stone of fat and gristle (nearly 90 kilos, or 98 kilos depending on where you read the story) at a mere eight years of age (or seven... depending on where you read the story).

Young Connor McCreadie could have a promising career as a sumo wrestler ahead of him if only he could manage to walk more than five minutes without getting out of breath.

Maybe he fact that the lad can't resist a fry-up could be partly to blame.

"But Britain is full of fat kids!" I hear you cry. Well, yes... but not so fat that the social services are called to see whether letting a child stuff himself with unhealthy food is tantamount to child abuse and therefore a case for withdrawal of parental custody (or putting the child into care).

Apparently he has already broken four beds and five bicycles!

Despite the outcry, Connor was given a second chance and spared the humiliation of being the first kid taken into care for being overweight... despite his mum refusing to put a lock on the fridge. She told the papers that she had tried to get him to eat "exotic fruit"...

...but apparently her son doesn't much care for bananas.

Here's what the papers said:

• The Northern Echo (before the decision)
• Daily Mirror
• Daily Mail
• The Guardian (after the decision)
• CBS News (US)

Or how about watching Connor and his mum try to talk their way out of it on:

• BBC News Video
• CNN Video (US) - not for weak stomachs!

Eta, not eater

Juan Ignacio "Iñaki" de Juana Chaos is what most right-minded people would call "a nasty piece of work".

A key figure in the Basque separatist and - let's not beat around the bush here - terrorist organisation Eta, de Juana Chaos was found guilty of organising (or maybe actually carrying out) various bombings in which 25 innocent people died. 25 lives meant a sentence of 3,000 years for de Juana - whose parents were not Basque and whose father was a Francoist Guardia Civil - but thanks to some odd clause in Spanish law which points out that it would be impossible for a human being to see out 3,000 years behind bars the sentence was automatically cut to a more bearable 18 years.

Less than one year per victim.

Knowing that there would be an outcry when the "man" was let out of chokey after his 18 year sentence, the government scrambled to find something else to put off de Juana's release date and found a couple of inflammatory articles he'd written for a Basque paper that were promoting terrorism, which amazingly added up to another 12 years... probably by that time another government would have to deal with the problem.

25 deaths = 18 years, 2 newspaper articles = 12 years... hmmm.

Something sounds a bit off here.

Needless to say de Juana thought so too and went on hunger strike.

The ins and outs of all this are too lengthy to detail here, but whether de Juana lives, dies, remains in prison or is set free on whatever terms will be bad for the government and only exacerbate the so-called Basque problem. Another thing that has exacerbated this problem was The Times printing pictures of de Juana Chaos "shackled" to his bed with what looked like bandages and with the physique of Victoria Beckham without the implants.

I'm certainly not going back to Tony Roma's for some time.

Still, just as Becks' missus only has herself to blame for the shape she's in, should the emaciated de Juana really be blaming the "Spanish state" for his protruding ribcage? Or should the ridiculous state of a legal system where a 3,000 year sentence becomes an 18 year one really be the focus of our anger rather than that of a hard-done-by murderous terrorist who has already done his time for the crime?

Ah, and news just in... apparently following the appointment of a government-friendly judge, de Juana's extra 12 years have been reduced to three. Compromise, perhaps?

Here's how the story was reported:

• The Times (original story)
• The Independent
• BBC News (on new reduction of his sentence)
• The Guardian (on de Juana Chaos and the peace process)

...and here's how a couple of Spain-based English -speaking bloggers gauged the Spanish reaction:

• The Big Chorizo (on how the Spanish papers saw things)
• Lavengro in Spain (on the Guardian article!)
  
  

Size matters

No-one who has ever caught a glimpse of a fashion show since the mid-1990's onwards could deny the ubiquity of the scrawny model. Skinny legs, thin arms, drawn features and even visible ribs (more or less) seemed to be pre-requisites for catwalk models in this day and age. Just look at the state of the lass on the right...

Some called it heroin chic, with models in fashion mags and fashion shows looking more like junkies than objects of lust. Over the years many critics claimed these "modern" standards of beauty were responsible for an increase in eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia and that the lives of many fashion-conscious young women (and the models themselves) were being put at risk.

A lot was said about this but nothing was actually done until 2006, when a few bright sparks at Madrid's Cibeles Fashion Week thought it would be a good idea to ban the thinner models from the catwalk. However, this was only after one model who had been due to appear died after living off a diet of lettuce leaves and Diet Coke for several months. Unbeknown to the Brazilian model, Armani's people had already whispered amongst themselves that the waif-like creature was "too skinny".

However, the Madrid catwalk ban on emaciated models opened up a new can of worms: can a local authority put limits on artistic expression? Fashion designers are essentially artists and see their work - clothes and shows - as artistic creations. Can local councils or governments dictate - or essentially censor - an artist's work? Those behind Milan's fashion week seem to think that creative freedom of expression is more important than any knock-on effects like anorexia, bulimia or death (although a subsequent, more logical view has been adopted by the Italian industry, albeit a vague one). Even London Fashion Week seemed reluctant to follow Madrid's lead, despite the worries of MP Tessa Jowell, probably fearing accusations of kow-towing to the nanny state.

The latest news from Madrid is that the big boys of high street fashion in Spain have agreed to standardise their previously all-over-the-place sizing policy, so a size 38 in Zara will be the same size as a size 38 in Mango or Bershka or Massimo Dutti or wherever. Some reports focus on the proposed standardisation for clothes sizes while others choose to focus on the plans to readjust the unnatural measurements of the original fashion model: the showroom dummy (or mannequin).

Here's how the story ran around the English-speaking world:

• BBC News
• The Guardian
• The Times (spot comical mis-spelling of Spanish MP's name...)
• San Jose Mercury News (US)
• CBS News (US)